Mercredi

Don't I begin every post by saying how busy the day was? Well, today was no exception. We left the hotel at 9 to go to our first guest lecture. Thinking that it would be faster, we took the bus, and we had to make one change in the middle (would have been 3 changes on the metro). The bus was not much fun- it was very crowded, and we didn't save any time. Nonetheless, we disembarked near the location and found our way to the cafe where our speaker was meeting us. She then led us to the Nouvelle Sorbonne, which is a university and a Sorbonne, but not the classic Sorbonne that you might be thinking of. Our professor had already told us that French universities were nowhere near as impressive looking as American ones, and she was right. The main building was hardly distinguished looking, and the inside wasn't that impressive. It really pales in comparison to the huge, beautiful campuses found in the US. However, the speaker also explained that French universities were suffering- she really did not make me want to go to a French university! However, tuition is free for the students, and apparently university food and lodging are very cheap also. We met in a small room which was perhaps some kind of department lounge- it was a bit hard to tell.

The lecture itself was very interesting. The speaker, a French university professor in linguistics, spoke about her latest project of compiling a corpus of the French spoken in Paris today, from all different areas. Interestingly, such a project has never been undertaken in Paris. There are very famous corpora from Montreal, though, for example, which my professor has worked heavily on, as well as in a few other smaller French cities. Thus, the scope of the project is large and they have large hopes with it. The speaker talked about the collection of the data, like the questions posed to the participants and how they were asked, how the participants were found, the transcription process, etc. All of the data is also online, so we can go and listen to everything and read the transcriptions ourselves. It was really very interesting. They have not done too much data analysis yet, as they are still in the process of collecting interviews, but it will be interesting to see what can be found from it. They will be looking at, of course, language variation, but they will also be able to look at social identity and other issues because of the type of questions asked.

After the lecture, we were free for a couple hours for lunch. We walked around the area a little bit- it was filled with students. We had lunch at a little Cretan restaurant and got gyros to go. It reminded me of all the times I got Döner in Germany. We walked from there and saw the Pantheon, which is a really brilliant piece of architecture. We didn't go outside, but instead kept walking through the busy streets until we eventually arrived at the former Sorbonne, which was much nicer looking on the outside. It was much more Parisian- the stone walls, statues, etc. But once again, we didn't have a chance to go inside, as we needed to keep walking to meet up for our next activity.

We met in front of the church in St-Germain-des-Prés, where we were given instructions for our observation activity. We wanted to look at variation in negation in French, as well as variation in pronouns. As for negation, grammatical French has two parts: "ne" in front of the verb and "pas" after. However, in oral French, the "ne" is very often dropped. The pronoun for the 2nd person plural "we" is also varied. The "nous" form is the actual "we" form, but people popularly use the 3rd person singular "on", which corresponds to the English "one" (as in, one goes to church on Sunday), but is very commonly used to mean we or a group. So, we were investigating those two particular traits in particular, just by walking around the neighborhood and listening in where we could. Our group found an indoor shopping mall (away from the cold!) and spent time there. As was to be expected, we did find numerous instances of the ne erasement and the use of 'on' for nous.

About an hour later, we met on the Pont des Arts, a pedestrian bridge crossing the Seine, to discuss our findings. It was unbelievably windy, so we didn't stay too long. From the bridge, we could see a lot of great structures, including Ile de la Cité, which is the very small island in the Seine which was essentially the very beginnings of Paris. Along the bridge fence, there were also tons of little locks that people had locked to the chains. Upon inquiry, we found out that it's a little romantic tradition. Couples will buy a lock, lock it to the fence, and then throw the key into the river to symbolize their neverending love. Awww.

From there, we were free for the day. I went with my professor and Richard, the older man of the group, to a little cafe in the area. I enjoyed the occasion and got to practice more French, and we had nice, leisurely conversation. Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel and planned to meet up later for dinner. On the way, Richard and I stopped in the grocery store near our hotel, which had a surprisingly large array of products. It was no Publix, but it was still very comprehensive- a person could really do all their basic grocery shopping there, instead of going to a bunch of little stores, which is more the French way. They had an especially impressive cheese selection, which I may have to investigate more before my trip home.

We took a couple hours back at the hotel to rest, and then Richard, my professor, and I all went back out to dinner. We went to a restaurant that my professor had visited in previous trips in Paris, a restaurant in the Belgian model that specializes in moules frites. Moules frites are mussels (steamed? boiled? not sure) prepared in varying ways, served with french fries. I don't think I ever had a meal specifically of mussels before, but I know I had tried them here and there. Mine were called Moules Léon, with Léon just being the name of the restaurant. It was some kind of buttery, white-wine sauce, and it was all good. Once again, we had a nice conversation, talking about various things like the French courses at UF and amusing experiences in foreign countries. After dinner, we took a brief walk around Notre Dame and the surrounding streets before finding (eventually) the nearest metro and making our way back to the hotel, where I now sit.

Overall, I am really enjoying my time here. Paris has so much to offer, and I feel I'm barely scraping the top of it. I'm getting along decently with my French, although there's always room for improvement, and I'm getting a feel for the French culture. Being here has also made me feel the need to live in a francophone environment, say either here or in Québec, for a more extended period of time. It's only then I think that I will approach my desired level of fluency. So, I think in my graduate school plans I should look for schools that either are already in francophone environments or have extended programs offered abroad. For example, my professor was telling me about exchange programs that UF has for either a semester or a full year in Rennes, where we happen to be going next Monday and Tuesday. I suppose the backup plan would just be to marry either un Québécois or un Français!

It's midnight and I still have homework to do, so bonsoir and good night!